


i can take another hit for you

by orphan_account



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-01
Updated: 2011-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-18 20:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames doesn’t know what he thought worst-case scenario was, but it was never this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i can take another hit for you

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Wolf Parade's "I'll Believe in Anything"

The surprising thing is how easy it all is, how mundane. How there was a kiss, adrenaline fuelled, tipsy and forgivable, and then sex, stone sober, less easy to brush off. How then there was a sprawling network of places, hotels, sublets, Arthur’s neat flat in San Francisco, Eames’ messy sprawl of a cottage in Bristol. How Arthur laughed when Eames’ fingers brushed over his sides, oversensitive, and the wave of his hair in the morning, messy in a way he usually wasn’t.

They settle into something of a routine, eventually, years after the initial bite of a kiss, Eames’ blood in Arthur’s mouth, the crush of Eames’ body pinning Arthur to a wall. They acquire a cat somewhere, even though neither one of them seems to remember how, and Arthur names her Gertrude, but Eames just calls her git. To Arthur’s eternal consternation, she only answers to the latter.

And yes, there are jobs, ripping the two of them apart for a week, a month, more, the phone lines fuzzy with distance and things that can’t be said, can’t ever be said except face to face on lazy sprawls of mornings, features creased from pillows, creased into pillows. And yes, there is the bloom of a bruise on Arthur’s face when he comes home, fractured ribs, Eames knuckles gone raw and bloody. They perform first-aid as quiet, as easy as everything else, as passing the crossword over coffee (Eames) and tea (Arthur), as easy as feeding the cat and ripping secrets out of minds.

It is easy, so easy, when Arthur starts turning down more jobs than he takes, when Eames follows suit without a discussion, until they’re home more than they’re not. The jobs don’t overlap; they have to feed the cat, after all, and keep the food in the fridge going bad, and without a word, without any sort of word, it just trickles down to nothing, Arthur consulting with the military, some cushy position that pays almost as well as they’re used to getting, and Eames picking up knitting just to bother Arthur, and then starting to paint again, first to please Arthur, and then because he’d forgotten the way it’d felt. Eames starts needing glasses for reading, he starts feeling old.

And then there’s a job, out of the blue, a call to a number Eames kept for reasons he can’t explain, an itch under his skin. It pays well, not that they need it, and it’s bound to be difficult. It’s hellishly illegal, and liable to get him killed, and Eames goes in the middle of the night because he can’t bear to ask and have Arthur say no, can’t bear to have Arthur say no because he knows he’d just go anyway.

It takes a month, and it’s a bitch of a job, Eames having forgotten how little dream sleep resembles natural sleep, how twelve hour shifts feel, how foreign hotel beds are, how stiff the sheets. It takes a month, and he supposes Arthur doesn’t call, because he left his phone at home, but Arthur’s always known how to find him anyway.

It takes a month, and Eames leaves six figures richer, not that they need it, leaves with needle marks dotting his skin and bruises under his eyes from the worst sort of sleep. Eames leaves, careful to be sure no one’s on his trail, no one can follow him back to the flat where his key slips into the lock, silent, a secret, where Git curves between his legs before walking away, quietly furious with him, where Arthur sleeps in the middle of the bed like he always does when Eames is gone.

Arthur stirs when Eames sits on the edge of the bed; he still sleeps like shit, years later, they both do. Arthur stirs, and then he’s awake abruptly, still honed like a sharp edged knife, still needs to be.

“Hey,” Eames says, and his voice rasps out on the word like he’s never said a thing before.

Arthur looks at him, unblinking, all dark eyes, hair haloed by the thin light of the streetlights outside. He gets out of bed, silent, precise, and Eames watches him as he leaves the room, listens to the click of the bathroom door shutting. To the dull thud of Arthur’s fist meeting the ceramic tile.

Eames waits for Arthur to come out, but he doesn’t, not before the jet lag kicks in, the terrible sleep, and Eames crumbles on his side of the bed, leaves space for Arthur to crawl back in. He doesn’t, and when Eames wakes up, dry-mouthed, there’s no sign of Arthur in the apartment, just cracked tile in the bathroom. There’s no cat radiating silent fury.

Eames doesn’t know what he thought worst-case scenario was, but it was never this. It was Arthur’s blood pouring through his fingers, it was Arthur lost in limbo, gone the way of Mal, it was Eames choking through blood and Arthur thousands of miles away. It wasn’t this, a quiet apartment, suddenly alien, Arthur’s suitcase gone from the closet, Arthur gone so easily it was as if he was a dream.

Eames leaves the place, because he suddenly can’t stand it, the spare pair of reading glasses on the bedside table, the book Arthur’s half through discarded on the couch. It feels like a mausoleum, feels entirely unreal, so Eames gets drunk at the first bar that serves him, hardly past ten in the morning, stumbles out too drunk to speak while daylight’s still pouring onto the street.

He wakes up on the couch with Arthur’s book bent out of shape beneath his spine, head throbbing with his heartbeat, and looks up each of Arthur’s aliases for booked flights. Finds it in the last place he looks, Arthur’s real name incongruous, like the worst alias of them all. Takes the next flight out to Los Angeles, because he can’t think of anything else to do.

Arthur’s at Cobb’s, and the only surprising thing about that is, after ten years of radio silence between Arthur and Cobb, after retirement and lost contact, Eames is entirely unsurprised. He doesn’t bring luggage, forgets it, he supposes, so when he rolls up in front of Cobb’s place in the suburbs, unchanged after all these years, all he has is his hands in his pockets.

It’s past midnight, and the lights are out at Cobb’s house, at every house, Eames a solitary thug ruining the aesthetic of the neighbourhood. His pounding at the door raises the cry of neutered dogs and splits through the silence, and of that he’s grimly proud.

Cobb answers the door, face creased and drawn and mostly unchanged, and he looks at Eames like he’s that same thug, like he’ll call neighbourhood watch on him, set shrill hounds upon him. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” Cobb asks.

“Is that meant to be rhetorical?” Eames snaps.

Arthur’s voice comes from behind Cobb, a quiet “Dom,” thin and strained, and then he’s pushed between Cobb and Eames, wearing the same pyjamas he’s worn for years, slipping down his knife sharp hips, soft at the knees and where the hems brush the ground.

“You didn’t leave a note,” Eames says dumbly, because he isn’t sure what else he’s meant to say.

“Good night, Eames,” Arthur says, and moves to close the door. Eames jams his foot between it and the jamb, strikes out that little wedge, like he can claw his way back in, piece by piece.

“You took my fucking _cat_ ,” Eames says.

“She likes me better,” Arthur snaps.

“Yes,” Eames says. “Because you spoil her when you think I’m not looking, did you think I didn’t notice?”

“What do you want?” Arthur asks, clipped, all business.

“Are you serious?” Eames says. “You can’t just. You can’t just leave in the night and expect that to be that.”

“Really,” Arthur says. “I think you set that trend.”

“Oh for christ’s sakes,” Eames snaps, voice raising despite himself. “You’re not a bloody idiot, Arthur, don’t pretend you wasted away, afraid I’d never come back.”

“Stop yelling,” Arthur hisses. “Or I’ll—“

“Or what?” Eames asks, a laugh punching out of him, bitter and raw. “You’ll leave me?”

“Dom’s kids are _sleeping_ ,” Arthur says.

“Who gives a fuck?” Eames shouts, voice ripping out into the streets, the still, silent streets, and for the first time in a long time, Eames feels ashamed, ashamed in a way only Arthur could ever make him, cold and implacable.

“You left me _first_ ,” Arthur shouts back, and his voice cracks the words into pieces.

Eames stops, struck dumb. “Is that what you think?” he asks.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Arthur says. “You leave in the middle of the night like a fucking criminal, no phone, no note, and you’re _surprised_ I think you left.”

“I _am_ a fucking criminal,” Eames says. “I’m not the only one. Jesus, Arthur, this isn’t new.”

“Well, _stop_ ,” Arthur says, mouth twisting.

“Arthur,” Eames says, helpless.

Arthur turns his face away. Eames can only see the shadow of stubble on his jaw, the stubborn set of his chin.

“Arthur,” Eames says. “ _Darling_.”

Arthur turns to face him again, entirely unmoving as Eames takes a step forward, curves his hand over the roughness of his cheek. “I’m not the man you want me to be,” he says, as gentle as he can.

“You were doing fine,” Arthur says. “We were doing _fine_.”

Eames tips his forehead against Arthur’s, feels Arthur’s too fast breathing brush over his cheek, feels the too fast beat of his heart humming through his veins.

“What will it take for you to come back home?” Eames whispers, and even as he says it, his chest gets tight, trapped. “I can stay, I’ll try. I’ll stop feeding Git scraps under the table, and I’ll chuck the phone, I will, and I’ll go see that ponce who wants to sell my art, and I’ll quit taking jobs, I promise, just _please_.”

“No you won’t,” Arthur whispers.

Eames closes his eyes, presses his hand closer against Arthur’s cheek like he can memorize him through touch, as if he hasn’t had time to memorize enough. Arthur exhales with his every inhalation, their breathing rough, out of synch. “I’m sorry,” Eames manages.

“Leave a note next time,” Arthur says, fingers sliding over Eames’ side, fisting in his shirt, and Eames pulls back, watches the flutter of Arthur’s lashes as he blinks, the sharp bite of his teeth in his bottom lip, a nervous habit acquired when they were still young, still brilliant.

“Pardon?” he asks, finally.

“Leave a note next time,” Arthur repeats, and treats Eames to the barest sliver of a smile.

“Right,” Eames says, pulling Arthur back into him, lips pressed against his jaw, “Right, yes, right,” repeated like a prayer. Remembers again how easy it all is, how hard.

“And use proper spelling in it,” Arthur mumbles, tucking his face down into the curve of Eames’ neck. “I know you know how to.”

“No promises,” Eames says, and curves his hand over the back of Arthur’s head, hair mussed from sleep, from his impatient fingers, holds him there and closes his eyes.


End file.
